Amid the shelving of the HBO Max film Batgirl and the clear desire of Warner Bros.

Discovery chief David Zaslav to find new leadership for the DC universe, DC Films president Walter Hamada has come to the verge of exiting the studio and consulted with counsel, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.

21 release of the Dwayne Johnson film Black Adam, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.

Pictures Group co-chairpersons and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy, who are overseeing DC until Zaslav settles on new leadership, informed Hamada at a recent Black Adam test screening that Batgirl, a $90 million film that was in postproduction, would be shelved.

A source with knowledge of the situation says Hamada was upset at not being consulted and concerned about the impact on those involved in making the film

Rather than strive for Marvel’s closely interconnected universe of films, DC’s properties under his watch were only loosely connected — and sometimes took place in entirely separate universes, such as Joker (2019), which overperformed with more than $1 billion at the box office and earned Joaquin Phoenix a best actor Oscar, and Matt Reeves’ The Batman (2022), which brought in $769.2 million globally, a strong figure for the pandemic

Previous to DC Films, Hamada was an executive vp production at New Line where he oversaw the genre label’s hugely successful horror franchise The Conjuring and It (2017), which made it $701.8 million at the box office